Does the word "hell" appear anywhere in the Hebrew Bible (i.e. the Old
Testament)? I think the answer is a clear an resounding
"No!" While the word "hell" does appear in the King James Version (KJV), that
version was produced by translators who didn't have access to the earliest and
best original Greek manuscripts. As the Preface to the Revised Standard Version
(RSV) pointed out: "the King James Version has grave defects. By the middle of
the nineteenth century, the development of Biblical studies and the discovery of
many manuscripts more ancient than those upon which the King James Version was
based, made it manifest that these defects are so many and so serious as to call
for revision of the English translation."

Perhaps the KJV's "gravest" error (if you will allow the pun) was the
translation of Sheol and Hades as "hell" when both words obviously mean "the
grave." Everyone went to Sheol/Hades when they died, not just the wicked. King
David said that God would be with him when he made his bed in Sheol. Other
psalmists, the sons of Korah, said that God would redeem their souls from Sheol.
Job asked to be hidden from suffering in Sheol. Ezekiel prophesied that all
Israel would be resurrected and saved, but Israel himself said that he would be
reunited with his son Joseph in Sheol. It is more than obvious that they were
speaking of going to the grave, not hell. And Hades was not "hell" either,
because it contained heavenly regions such as the Elysian Fields and the Blessed
Isles. The Greek hell was not Hades, but Tartarus. But by the time the KJV was
produced, the English word "hell" (which has connotations of a place that is
hidden) had become confused with Sheol/Hades (which were also hidden places, but
not places where everyone suffered). In the original texts, to say that someone
was in danger of Sheol/Hades if they sinned was like me saying that someone
risks death if they drink and drive.

According to modern Bible scholars the word "hell" did not appear
even once in the original Hebrew Bible, or Old
Testament (OT). Furthermore the word "hell" is very hard to find in the New
Testament (NT) as well. You can confirm this by using an online Bible search tool to
scan various Bible translations for the word "hell." Or you can save
time and effort by referring to the
table below, which was produced by Gary Amirault, a Bible scholar who has
extensively researched the question of "hell" as a biblical teaching. I have
added two translations to his original list: the Holman Christian
Standard Bible (HCSB), sponsored by the famously literal and
conservative Southern Baptist Convention, and the New American Bible Revised
Edition (NABRE), produced by more than a hundred Bible scholars working for the
Roman Catholic Church.

If this subject interests you, I have created a simple, logical proof that there
is No Hell in the Bible, which
you read without annoying ads by clicking the hyperlinked title.